The Great Christmas Record Odyssey, Ep. CXXXV

Strap yourself in for another spin around ye olde turntable, gang. . .

Album Title:  Holiday Greetings

Album Artist:  Birchwood Chorale

I'm not entirely sure where this one came from. I have a stack of, like, forty un-reviewed LPs downstairs in my storage room that I pull from every year for new posts on this site of mine, and because of this I never made it out to Radio Wasteland this year - my local record store - to pick up any more. Probably the first time I haven't done so in like six or so years, Jim most likely thinks I'm dead. Anyway, if I had to guess, I'd wager I picked it up from their Dollar Bin at some point int he past, because it was still shrink-wrapped with the price sticker (a whopping 99 cents) still on it.

Brand new, never played, about as Mint as a forty-five year old record can be.

. . . this can't be a good sign.

So kicking things off on Side A on this sum'bitch, I realized that this album cover art was a little misleading. I assumed there'd be a stand-out, female vocalist on this release. Some chick who, as the picture indicates, enjoys her Holidays with some LCD in her egg nog. Not so much the case, though - I should've caught the 'Chorale' at first glance and realized then that it was a choir-based album, and not some churchy-type tripping balls on yuletide acid.

We've reviewed a ton of 'chorales' on this blog over the years, and the sound majority of those generally sound like church choirs, landing anywhere on the 'professional' to 'Cousin Frank has a microphone-to-reel set up and for $40 and a case of Schlitz he said he'd record your church group next Thursday at 3pm' scale. This doesn't quite sound like a church choir to me, despite some of the religious carols that are being sung here. No, this is more dramatic, like some 'touring' group that puts on a show at your local civic or arts center, and you go with your significant other for like $10 a ticket and sit around a bunch of other folks who equally were in the same 'Eh, it doesn't sound like an awesome time, but if you're bored we could go and check it out' boat.

That's the sort of show where the vocal arrangements are artsier than they need to be, in order to display the singers' range - which, to be fair, is pretty good here. No doubt these folks can sing, and the recording quality is on point for the time: it's mixed well, no dramatic highs and low that make you spill your drink out of fear or anything like that, and the male and female vocals emerge out of the left and right channels (you would want to listen to this in Mono for sure.) There's no music accompaniment except for a soft piano here that serves more as a grounding agent than anything else, so most of the heavy lifting is done by the chorale.

Not falling into the pitfalls of the more-common-than-it-should-be-practice of 'Holiday Originals,' the folks who laid out this track list crammed it full of Holiday staples. This make sense, because if you were going to your local civic center to watch this three-hour choir concert (because you're old now and that's what passes as weekend entertainment at this stage in your life) and you didn't recognize any of the songs, you'd probably have a long, awkward ride home afterwards. And you'd be sleeping on the couch.

You could probably listen to one song off this record and be like, "Okay, I get it." But after nearly forty-five minutes, or seven hours, or however damn long this album is, I feel a little like I'm hallucinating myself. Has this been the same song the entire time? Is the five-headed wreath harpy on the album cover merging into a singular, yuletide Beelzebub? After so much dramatic singing to little-to-no music - often times dialed up to 11, in like John Williams' 'Duel of the Fates' territory,' you feel your brain melting down the back of your shirt.

Maybe I'm old-fashioned, but I think I'll just skip the acid and just stick to whiskey in my egg nog this Holiday Season, thank you very much. I'm too old for a long, strange trip like this.

VERDICT:  5/10 - Meh (Decent singing, as far as chorales go, but one can only take sooo much of this kind of art form in one sitting before questioning the reality of everything around them. And personally, I don't like it when the colors on my walls start speaking to me. . .)

- SHELVED -

- Brian

The Great Christmas Record Odyssey, Ep. CXXXIII

Who's ready for some more yuletide, audio snobbery? Anyone?

Album Title:  The Joyful Season

Album Artist:  The Voices of Jo Stafford

This one might be a bit of a let-down, guys. So, like practically every other album reviewed this year, I snatched up yet another dollar bin treasure from Radio Wasteland based on the album artwork. Jo Stafford has one of those looks that, to me, screams 'boring church lady music.' The beehive haircut and disapproving look leads one to believe that this lady was probably used to wielding the 'N-Word' around like a battle ax back in the day. 

Because God forbid those people use the same sidewalk as her children.

Here's the shtick with this album: 'The Voices of Jo Stafford.' At first I wasn't sure what the hell this meant, like were they a group of singers who were forced to bear the name of only one, beehive-wearing bitch (who's most likely a racist)? Does she have multiple personalities and each of them get a chance to sing on this Holiday album (because, as terrifying as that would probably be for the studio engineers to record, I bet it'd be pretty awesome to listen to)?

Nothing nearly that cool, I'm afraid. They recorded multiple vocal tracks of the same, stupid lady and then layered them over the music. That's it.

Jo would like to speak to your manager, pronto.

Guys, that isn't anything special. That's called backing vocals, and they're present in nearly every song ever recorded, this isn't some groundbreaking thing you just invented. Folks do it all the time, except most people use other people for backing vocals. 

Jo must have insisted on - nay, demanded - only using her 'angelic voice' on this album. Probably while smoking a cigarette in the studio, hand on her hip, glaring at the black janitor that was taking out the trash in the sound booth.

Because 'they' shouldn't ever be allowed in her presence. Her grandfather probably rode with Nathan Bedford Forrest.

Anyway, can this lady sing? Meh, I guess. She sounds like a middle-aged woman from the '60s singing. A click up from the 'pretty good singer at church' that we've reviewed a hundred times or so on this blog of ours, but nothing impressive enough to commit to memory. She must have been in her 40s when this was recorded, because her voice is relatively low for a female - only decades of being beaten down by life (and maybe a husband, considering it was the '60s), birthing kids, watching blacks get Civil Rights, etc. can do that to a woman's voice.

The saving grace here is that Jo isn't singing a church-y Christmas album at all, which was my initial impression upon adding this one to my stack of Holiday records a month or two ago. No, these are all secular Holiday favorites that everyone knows the lyrics to - just check out the track listing. This alone adds a point or two in Jo's favor, because had this been a set of overly-religious, Christmas music (WHY was that so popular sixty years ago?), or a collection of god-awful 'original' Christmas songs (there's thousands of Holiday favorites in the Public Domain, guys - go nuts), this would have been a shit-show.

From Our House to Yours. Racistly.

Jo can sing well enough, like I said, and the arrangements themselves are decent for the time period. It's a chill album, there's no upbeat music, no 'swing' to be found here (despite the fact I'm pretty sure this was released in the '60s.) No, Jo likes to keep it slow and low, as if she's singing to herself while slowly, stumbling up the stairs of her home late at night after she passed out drunk on a living room couch in front of her black-and-white, 14" television set.

So again, kinda disappointed because I was hoping to find something comically bad with this one, and instead I just got a half-way competent - but ultimately boring - Holiday album from some racist Karen from the '60s.

VERDICT:  4/10 - Borophyll (Was the 'beehive' haircut the 'I want to speak to the manager' haircut of the 1960's? 'Cause I'm assuming it was.)

- SHELVED-

- Brian

The Great Christmas Record Odyssey, Ep. CXXII

Hey there. Let's jump into this one and, well, just see what we can wrap our heads around . .

Album Title:  A Christmas to Remember

Album Artist:  Various Artists

Right off the bat, I should let you guys know that this was one of the more difficult albums I've had to review for the Holidays. I first spotted it at Radio Wasteland in the dusty-as-all-hell Dollar Bin, and right away I thought this was going to be a total crap-fest, considering:

No, that's not The Band - it's The Christmas Boogie Band. Huge difference.

1.)  I didn't recognize a single artist on the track listing on the back of the sleeve, which is rarely a good sign. I mean, how hard is it really to book a C- or D-List artist for a Holiday record? How many absolute train wrecks have we seen over the years featuring abysmal 'talent' in their track listings? These dudes are always clamoring for spots on Christmas compilations like this, that's pretty much all they had once their mainstream careers began to dry up. 

2.)  The cover art is. . . something. You have Santa Claus, flying across a wintery landscape, like he's been known to do - directly in front of the moon like he's in E.T. or some shit. Down below on the ground is a herd of wild horses, watching on in what I can only assume is awe at the passing spectacle. Horses are skittish animals, guys, so this probably freaked them right the f*** out. Seeing a dude repeatedly cracking a whip across the backs of their quadruped cousins (are horses and reindeer distantly related?) as THEY FLY ACROSS THE SKY, IN CLEAR DEFIANCE OF GOD'S WILL.

Clearly whoever whipped this together was high as a damn kite.

But I digress. Let's get back to the point of this whole entry here, folks - let's analyze what this thing actually sounds like. 

Dropping the needle on Side A, we're met with some upbeat Tijuana-ish, South-of-the-Border jazz. As you all well know by now, this is most definitely my jam. I sat up, took notice, and was like, 'Oh damn, we might have a surprise keeper on our hands here!'

Remember this one, gang? Colored vinyl pressing of Christmas Disco for $12?

Then, right on its heels, came something different - a full-blown, Salsoul Orchestra-ish rendition of 'Jingle Bells.' Jarring, sure, considering it was preceded by a completely different sound, but not horrible: both were upbeat, fun instrumentals that one could definitely be entertained by, and they were done well (mixing, arrangement, performance - no complaints.) 

The next track also had some disco elements to it, but featured a male singer delivering some straight-up yacht rock vocals over the funkiness. 2015 Brian would not have cared for this in the slightest, but 2024 Brian, folks, is all here for the Yacht Rock.

I was hoping the trend would continue as Side A progressed, but the ol' bucket of ice water was dashed in my face pretty fast when the next track kicked off. A polka number. Heavy on the organ, no accordion to be found, so that it comes across more as a carnival ride soundtrack than an actual Polish take on Christmas. Definitely cringy, but all of these songs clock in under the 2-minute mark, so I was willing to take a point off and continue on my merry way. Fortunately, the next song is a return to Yacht Rock/Disco territory, which, while not my favorite sort of yuletide genre in the slightest, was at least following a discernible trend.

Magnum P.I. and Slenderman enjoy a sleigh ride on a magical winter's night. 

The last track on Side A, while not horrible, was a country/western instrumental done all on a quartet of guitars. And though out of place here (though the 'place,' by this point in time, is starting to get hard to keep track of), it was a decent little track. No, where everything falls of the rails in major fashion is upon flipping the record over on to Side B. . .

It's a piano-led orchestral number. Slow, serene, and it doesn't sound anything like Christmas music. It's like they pressed two different mini-albums onto one frickin' record. No more upbeat, fun music. No more Tijuana jazz, no more disco, no more yacht rock. Now it's time for introspection.

I had a bad feeling that this album was themed (I've reviewed albums in the past that were released like this), with one side the 'upbeat' Christmas music - the fun carols, etc. - and the other side the 'serious' Christmas music (you know, the 'Reason for the Season' and all that crap.)  

I hate it when albums do this.

Well, they definitely weren't kidding with the 'all the different ways you feel' crap.

My fears were well-founded, as it turns out. The next couple tracks were all filled with the usual, boring church bullshit: lots of organ, lots of hand bells, chimes, harpsichords, harmonicas (courtesy of a group called The Harmonicats - seriously, I guess that's a thing that exists), and - of course - swelling string sections. It was bad enough just as mere instrumental tracks, but by the third or fourth song in, they start rolling out the usual, overly-brash male vocals - because belting out religious carols makes it hit harder, I guess - and the standard, old-lady-warbling that you generally hear at a church service you're dragged to during the Holiday Season.

This whole album sounds like some mid-level record company executive asked his sound engineers what masters were lying around the label's studio that hadn't been previously released on prior Holiday compilations. The poor sound dudes, sighing deeply and shaking their heads, came out with a dusty cardboard box filled with a 13 reels of various songs (from all kinds of frickin' genres.) They informed this douchey superior of theirs that these reels were all that was left, but they were from various sessions over the years and there wasn't any continuity to speak of.

Then the executive, in his infinite wisdom, said 'screw it' and told them to mix them all up and have the shit pressed for release.

If it were possible to rate each side separately, I'd probably rate Side A a 6.5 (not that we condone the '0.5' system around here) and Side B a 4. But, because we are a society with f***ing rules, I can't do that, and as such, will be slapping one, big rating on the entire album as a whole.  And I'm not happy about it. At all.

VERDICT:  5/10 - Meh  (Almost good, but damn - this album does to 'compilations' what Michael Bay did to Transformers. It's so random that I want to prescribe it ADHD meds and get it in to therapy.)

- SHELVED-

- Brian

The Colonel's 25th

Hey kids.

A Black Bean Brownie Cake Mom dropped off in the morning.

Yours Truly turned 25 today. A monumental milestone, really, watered down slightly by the fact it fell on, you know, a weekday this year.  Not a whole heck of a lot you can do on a weekday as far as birthdays are concerned, but I count myself fortunate that I'm one of those lucky assholes that never has to go to work on my birthday.

One of the perks about being a teacher and having a birthday in July. Kinda rules.

Kris asked what I wanted to do on my birthday this year - if I had anything special in mind, if I wanted to go out to dinner, etc. - but I'm low-maintenance anymore, and honestly my 'dream day' is pretty basic: all I wanted to do was head to Radio Wasteland later on in the morning and shop for some vinyl, then spend the afternoon cleaning, resleeving, and cataloging my ever-expanding collection. You know, total nerd shit. 

I've spent far crappier days, I can tell you that much.

A couple days later - when it was the weekend and we didn't have any huge plans in the calendar (for once) - some of my friends took me around downtown Midland on a bar crawl for a belated celebration of my 25 years on this planet. Good times as always.

So here you go, folks - my 25th Birthday in a nutshell.  Enjoy.

My favorite thing to do on any birthday is hit up Midland's local record store, Radio Wasteland (where I'm considered a regular, and am additionally a 'Top Fan' of theirs on Facebook.)

My shelving situation is definitely getting dicey at home - I'm running out of space for additional records, so I don't buy in bulk as much as I used to, and my 'want' list is probably around 15-20 records. Still, I do enjoy the treasure hunting aspect of walking into a record store and stumbling across LPs I didn't realize I wanted. I probably spent 90 minutes in Jim's store today, thoroughly canvassing the entirety of his wares.

Walked out with seven boxed sets of classical music and operas, a 2-LP compilation, double-LPs from Brubeck and Chicago, Pablo Cruise, Loggins and Messina, and - the jewel of my finds today - the second compilation from Fat Wreck Chords, Survival of the Fattest (one of my first punk CDs I ever bought, back in my sophomore year of high school.) All for $44.

An awesome birthday haul, if I do say so myself.

Once I got home, I broke out the ol' Spin Clean machine and set to work cleaning, cataloging, and sleeving my new albums. I had ordered some new inner and outer sleeves in preparation for this undertaking days before, and made sure they were shipped to my house in time for my birthday. Once the new additions were all taken care of, I began resleeving a bunch of my existing albums that needed an upgrade. Took about five or six hours, but it was an awesome five or six hours, I'll tell ya what.

And some jalapeno honey whiskey accompanied the undertaking quite nicely.

A couple days later, me and some of the dads from our Midland friend group headed over to the Larkin Beer Garden to kick off an evening of bar-hopping downtown.

The beer selection on hand was minimal, but decent. Morgan, Mitch and Erik were on hand this evening (Collier was unfortunately out of town this weekend), and while we were at the beer truck we bumped into my old realtor, Rick, who helped us in buying our home back in 2017. Coincidentally, Rick - an avid record collector himself - was wearing a Radio Wasteland t-shirt.

We stayed for a single beer, then decided we'd head somewhere else to mix it up (there weren't a ton of people there, and there was zero shad to speak of since, you know, it's in the middle of an empty parking lot and everything.)

What are you, a cop?

Not gonna lie, this sign is pretty accurate.

Murals are starting to spread throughout the city, which grows more and more hipsterly with every passing year.

Heading downtown towards The Commons, where you're allowed to drink outside downtown (within the marked barricades, obviously.)

After picking up some beers from Molasses - a barbecue joint on the main drag - we set up shop at a table outside me and Erik's Lodge (the third story of the Larkin Building, in the background there.)

There was a quartet of saxophonists doing covers this evening. I forget what they're called, but I like to think their name is Sax on the Beach. That'd be the name of my sax quartet if I had one.

After a couple beers on Main Street, we decided to grab some food at nearby Whichcraft - probably my favorite bar downtown.

This place has the best beer selection in Midland, bar none.

Kicking things off with an imperial sour from Transient (never heard of 'em.)

Snackables.

Once we had eaten some food and had a few drinks at Whichcraft, the guys were really jonesing for some Old Fashioneds, so we headed over to Three Bridges, back on Main St.

This place distills their own liquor, so Erik and I checked out their vats for a hot minute.

Morgan, Mitch, and a weird-looking plant at our table that sorta looked like hops.

This bozo was providing live music to the bar patrons throughout the duration of our stay there. He was not good.

En route to the next stop. . .

Obligatory group pic under these lights.

We stopped off at Decker's for a nightcap (a few pitchers of cheap, domestic beer that went down like water.) When I got there I realized it was filled with my brother Chris' old high school buddies: the dude bartending was his friend, Jess, who used to be the singer in Chris' high school and college bands.

A regular at Decker's is one of Chris' oldest friends (from like elementary school), Sverchek.

Sverchek belts out some classic '90s alternative for the night's karaoke session. . .

Erik picked up the tab at Decker's and, on our way out, noticed how Jess the bartender kept track of our ordering.

Morgan gifted me this for a birthday present - one of my all-time favorite Irish whiskeys. Perfect way to end a stellar birthday - hoping next year pans out just as awesome.

- Brian

The Great Christmas Record Odyssey, Ep. XCII

Boys and girls of all ages, I present to you now the return of America's Greatest Yuletide Event:

The Great Christmas Record Odyssey.

By now, as we come into my eighth 'season' of documenting this is, you should all know how this works, but in case you need a refresher of this, one of my all-time favorite Holiday traditions, here's a run-down.

Since I first started collecting vinyl, back in 2005, I've gotten into the habit of hauling out all of my Christmas vinyl at the start of the Holiday Pre-Season (now-ish, mid-November) and stacking it up in 'staging' area.  Then, over the course of the next month and a half, I methodically listen to every, single album, scrutinizing the holy hell out of it.  The good ones stay in rotation, and are played repeatedly throughout the year.  The okay ones are put aside for future use, but lose their spot in the playlist for the rest of the season.  The bad ones are ridiculed to shreds and donated to the nearest thrift store at the earliest possible convenience.

And then I go through the entire process all over again the following year, armed with a new stack of Christmas vinyl to burn through.

Now, as this is the first installment in this year's season of vinyl reviewin', I'll once again direct your attention to the cherished rating scale we use around these parts:

10 - . . . And Out Come the Wolves (a symbol of perfection, and arguably one of the greatest albums made in the last thirty years)

9 - Cowabunga! (if it makes you want to shout like a Ninja Turtle, you know it's good.)

8 - Awesome (worthy of repeated spins during the Holidays)

7 - Pretty Rad (generally, in order for an album of mine to stay in Holiday Season Rotation, it needs to be rated '7' and up.)

6 - Decent (once and awhile a '6' makes it into constant rotation, but only if it satisfies a previously-vacant Holiday music niche.  These albums almost always get 'Shelved':  I hold on to them - for the time being - but they lose turntable time for the duration of the Season.)

5 - Meh  (anything below this point is almost always put into my annual 'Donate to Goodwill' pile)

4 - Borophyll (there may be some redeeming qualities here that might make albums at this score appeal to some people, but definitely not Yours Truly.)

3 - Seriously? (comically bad, if you will.)

2 - Reality TV (there's only one thing shittier than Reality TV in my opinion, and that is. . .)

1 - Ohio (the Ninth Circle of Hell)

Good.  Now that everyone's been refreshed with how shit works around here, let's just go ahead and get started, shall we. . .

Album Title:  White Christmas

Album Artist:  Dennis Day Orchestra & Choir

I recently went into Radio Wasteland after a hiatus of nearly 10 months.  That's a long period of time, but one that was forced upon me by the fact that I've almost run out of record shelving for new albums, and, more importantly, the cost of vinyl over the last year has gone up astronomically.  

I, for one, refuse to spend $30 on a brand new LP. . . but that's a tale for another time, let's focus on Christmas jams this evening.  

Anyway, the whole reason I finally returned to my favorite record store was to get my grubby mitts on their collection of God-awful, Dollar Bin Holiday albums before society started hunting for Christmas music.  Jim, the owner of the store, usually makes a social media post towards the beginning of November advertising all the store's new and vintage Christmas releases, and I wanted to beat the rush this year.

Mission accomplished.

I walked out of his store with about 24 albums - which you'll have to suffer through over the course of the next couple years, I'm afraid - and this gem right here was among them.  I had already reviewed a good chunk of the artists I came across while digging through the Dollar Bin - many have had their moment in the spotlight on this Great Christmas Record Odyssey of ours - but I've never heard of this guy before.

Dennis Day.

At first glance, he looks like a pleasant, Burl Ives-ish sorta guy.  Jolly enough, but you know just by looking at him that he enjoys a whiskey and an off-color joke about 'an Oriental.'  I think it's the eyes - he definitely gives off vibes like he honestly wants to wish you a Merry Christmas, but if you wanna run your mouth like an asshole he has no qualms with putting his fist in it.  Dude probably served in a war (based on the dated packaging, I'm guessing it was The Big One), chain-smoked whatever he could get his hairy-knuckled hands on, and has a history of spousal abuse.

Still, the guy went out of his way to grab himself a brace of orphans for this picture.  The boy clearly doesn't mind sitting on Dennis' lap, but the girl doesn't seem thrilled with it.

Where the f*** is Dennis' hands?

Anyway, hokey packaging aside, this is a pretty bland affair from start to finish.  I was honestly hoping for something more comically bad than what we ended up with here:  Dennis can sorta sing, and the arrangements aren't terrible, per se (definitely heavy on the church organs, but the sound levels are at least mixed well.)  There's a choir doing background vocals, and they're subtle enough that you can never really tell if it's kids or women singing.  All in all, the non-religious songs on this album come across like just about anything else you'd hear coming out of the 1940s/50s, and the pipe organ-heavy, religious carols sound like they were performed during a church service.  Bland as beige paint and just as forgettable.

If anything, the most eyebrow-raising thing on this entire album is Dennis' voice - it does not match his appearance at all.  You'd think a dude looking like this would have a more booming or gruff voice, but he has this higher-pitched, softer voice (in that nasally, 1940s style, of course.)  While he can carry a tune without drawing anyone's ire, it wasn't expected and I'm kinda let down that we missed out on an opportunity for some classic, good ol' fashioned ridiculing.

Oh well, maybe next time.

VERDICT:  4/10 - Borophyll (Nothing overly terrible here, and I'm sure this could appeal to some folks, but the entire affair is bland and lacks any kind of redeeming qualities for Yours Truly.  You hurt my feelings, Dennis.)

- SHELVED -

- Brian